Rather than reading in a chair, I prefer reading lying in bed!
The book opens with Ichikawa Yuuto's Akaenpitsu wa Iranai ("The Red Pencil Is Never Needed"), which is a part of his Maria & Ren series, though you don't need any prior knowledge, as this is actually a prequel story. It focuses on Ren's| teenager days, and is set in the early seventies, more than a decade before the main series starts with The Jellyfish Never Freezes. The story is set in the country of J(apan) and is (mostly) narratored from the POV of Kouno Matsuri, who, like Ren, is a member in their school's newspaper club. One day, Ren joins Matsuri on her way home, where he meets Matsuri's father Kouno Tadaharu, a famous photographer, though infamously a difficult man. He however seems to find Ren an interesting young man, as he invites him to stay for dinner, though Tadaharu himself seems more focused on his own work. Ren is given a tour of the house, which includes a work cabin in the garden with an electronic lock. Matsuri's aunt and uncle also arrive at the house, much to Matsuri's chagrin, as her aunt always bosses everyone around. Even though Ren's never met these people, even he can tell there's a lot of tension going between Matsuri, her mother and her aunt and uncle, so he sticks around and eventually it becomes so late he's offered a bed for that evening. In the middle of the night however, Matsuri is awakened by a knock on his door: Ren has noticed something very odd outside, two sets of footprints going to the cabin, but only one returning. Only Tadaharu's not found in the house, so they enter the cabin... to find Tadaharu killed. But which of the people in the house did it?
On the whole a very solid puzzle, though with some elements I personally don't really like in pure whodunnit puzzles. The atmosphere is great, with the reader feeling something will happen as all the actors gather in the Kouno house, and I think a lot of readers might find it pretty challenging to figure out even half of the lines of deduction needed to arrive at the truth. While the story isn't that long, Ichikawa actually manages to put (relatively) a lot of twists in this tale, all with proper clues and foreshadowing, and while some of the element used to 'cross out' suspects might feel a bit familiar, I think it's generally a good example of this type of story. I also like how Ichikawa used his main series for this story (this tale is also included in the first short story collection of the Maria & Ren series, The Boneyard Never Speaks), but I do have to say it doesn't feel very strongly connected to the main series besides for the appearance of Ren: it misses the light sci-fi elements of the main series, as well as the dual narrative all the novels have.
Yonezawa Honobu also wrote his story as part of one of his series: namely the Shoushimin series (recently adapated as a television anime series). Berlin Agepan no Nazo ("The Berliner Pfannkuchen Mystery") is interesting, as the reader is technically not looking for a culprit, but for a victim! Kobato is once again roped into 'trouble' despite aspiring to be 'Petite Bourgeoisie' minding his own business. His friend Kengo is a member of the newspaper club, where they were planning on doing an article on Berliner Pfannkuchen: a German doughnut with a jam filling. A local bakery has started selling them, which gave one of the newspaper club members an idea: they were going to recreate the end-of-year tradition with Berliner Pfannkuchen: basically Russian roulette by having one of the doughnuts filled with mustard. Four people were going to play the game, with one other member having picked up the Berliner Pfannkuchen at the bakery and then swinging by the Cooking Club to have one of them filled with mustard. However, the time of destiny apparently never came: all four members ate one of the four doughnuts, but they all claim to not have eaten the one with mustard. This of course doesn't make for a fun newspaper article, and some people are starting to suspect the "victim" is trying to make this article a failure on purpose, so Kengo hopes Kobato can figure out who lost the Berliner Roulette.
I absolutely love the innocent premise of this story and how it switches things around to have you figure out who the victim was. That said, I think that as a pure puzzle, this one was set-up far too easy, and I'd argue it's far more likely the reader will solve this story more based on feeling and instinct, than based on the clues per se. In fact, a lot of the necessary information doesn't even feel like they are obtained via logical conclusions, but simply via asking questions to certain characters, who then gladly give up that information, so as a puzzle, I do think this story is by far the weakest of the collection, even though as a story, it's very enjoyable.
The third story is by Higashigawa Tokuya, and I actually already discussed back in 2020, as his Alibi no Aru Yougishatachi ("Suspects With Alibis") had been featured in the anthology Honkaku-Ou 2020, so I'd like to refer to that post if you want learn more about it. Its inclusion in Honkaku-Ou 2020 was actually how I first learned about the project that would eventually culminate in the publication of Anata mo Meitantei.
The fourth story Momiji no Nishiki ("Breathtaking Red Leaves") by Maya Yutaka is also a series story, and while I think readers familiar with Maya's best-known series will soon recognize certain characters, the 'formal reveal' of their identities comes late, so I'll refrain from specificying what series this is. The main focus is on a group of students who have travelled to a traditional inn with a hot spring in the mountains to celebrate their graduation. They also have some interest in a local deity called Chuuruu, which has two small shrines dedicated to it on two points on the mountain: one near the base of the mountain, and one at the top, with them being connected via narrow (inaccssible) cracks and cavities in the mountain. At the top of the mountain is also a sightseeing deck. The students all enjoy their time at the inn, relaxing in the hot springs and playing games with each other and observing the other guests. Among the other two guests are two men, who at the end of the story discover a dead body lying on a cliff below the sightseeing deck on the top of the mountain. It is clear the victim was killed, but by whom?
Definitely of the best stories in the book, one that best shows off how cool these puzzles can be. The way Maya just throws the Challenge at the reader with the discovery of the corpse is fantastic, as all the information you needed is actually already collected before the murder even happens. You don't even learn who the victim is when you're challenged: you are expected to deduce the identity of the victim yourself too, and yes, Maya actually did leave enough hints and clues in all the events leading up to the discovery of the victim to allow you to guess who the victim actually is. And that's just the first half of the problem, because then you still need to deduce who the murderer is, and still based on the information presented to you up until the discovery of the victim, so you have no data available from investigation/interrogation etc. regarding alibis. This is really a very well-constructed puzzle, and a great example of the logic-based mystery story.
Also funny: all the characters are named after stations on the JR Kashii line in Fukuoka, which was near where I lived in Fukuoka! I instantly recognized those names together!
In Norizuki Rintarou's Shinritekikashi Ari ("Stigmatized Property"), Rintarou (the fictional writer) is asked by his freelance writer 'friend' Iida Saizou to look into the mysterious death of a colleague: Matsuoka Shoukichi was a freelance writer on matters of finance and gambling, but recently started having a hit with a series of articles on his new apartment: he was renting an old place where the previous two inhabitants had died: one had died all alone in the apartment from natural causes, while the other had committed suicide. Now he believed the place was haunted, and his articles on his home attracted quite some attention. But Matsuoka himself then was found dead in his apartment too, having hung himself by the neck. There were people who might have wanted Matsuoka dead, as he seemed to dabble in blackmail too, but Matsuoka kept his new address very secret, so how could any of the suspects have killed him?
Very decent story, and I like it a lot for having an much more "open" set-up than most of the other stories, which featured closed-off settings. The latter format of course feels more fair as a way to limit the number of suspects, and the way it is done in this story might not be completely convincing (i.e. we know the victim approached a certain number of people, who seem to be the suspects), but Norizuki does actually make proper use of this more open set-up to write a whodunnit that genuinely utilizes its urban setting. We have a private camera of a nosy neighbor that catches the times people went in and out the apartment/crime scene and the location itself is used in a clever way to determine who the murderer is. I wouldn't have wanted all the stories in this volume to use this open set-up, but it works here exactly because the other stories are more limited in their settings.
Shirai Tomoyuki's Shiri no Aoi Shitai ("The Blue-Bottomed Body") is about a detective who is looking into the indie horror film Fufa and Kuha: rumors have it footage of an actual murder that occured during its filming had been used in the film. The detective manages to track down one of the few remaining copies of the film and someone who was involved in the whole ordeal, and he is told the story of how a few years ago a group of students in the university film club were helping out Sadoshima Souhei, a graduated former member who was directing his first indie horror film: Fufa and Kuha. The group were staying at a boarding house owned by the father of one of the members, located in the woods of a mountain, the perfect place to film a slasher. Shiori, the actress of the heroine, was contracted seperately, though from the way she spoke openly about very much wanting to fuck, and the way she was flirting with all the other men in the crew, she was hired by Sadoshima for other skills than her acting. However, one of the members then realized she was the same woman who caused the suicide of a former club member by seducing him and then fake a pregnancy to push for money. The following day, the actor playing the villain role hears some moaning coming from the van. He peeks inside through the half-open window, only to see Shiori being strangled by someone. He rushes back into the building to get the car keys and help, but by the time they return to the van, Shiori has been murdered. And she's lying completely naked in the van. It is at this point our detective claims he can point out who the murderer is, and the reader should be able to do that too!
Was this the shortest story? Anyway, it's interesting how Shirai uses some sexual elements in the solution's line of deduction: I think the first time he uses it, it's a bit tacky and not really convincing, but the way it's used later on is a lot better. The story reminds a bit of Hayasaka Yabusaka's work (the Raichi series) due to its use of sex in a mystery story, though I think at least in this example, Hayakawa generally does it better. I also found the murderer's plan rather risky: while I understand the underlying goal they wanted to achieve by doing all that, it seems like this was a rather dangerous plan (for themselves) to go for, with more a chance of failing at the first step of the plan than everything going as hoped...
On the whole, Anata mo Meitantei/What A Great Detective You Are is a really impressive short story collection, that shows off how fun the formal whodunnit/guess-the-culprit puzzle can be. We have a really talented group of writers in this book, and I loved they all wrote their stories as parts of their wel-known series (if applicable). I'd love to see another iteration of this!
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